1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus that forms flat thin ellipses of dough from a batch of dough.
2. Description of the Related Art
Baked flat thin disks of dough (e.g., tortillas or pita bread) are an extremely popular food sold in restaurants, especially Mexican or Greek establishments, as well grocery stores and the like. For example, many restaurants and stores serve homemade tortillas either individually with meals or packaged for volume sales. However, homemade tortillas require several employees to perform the steps of separating the dough into discrete balls, pressing each individual ball of dough into a flat thin disk using a roller, and then cooking the dough on a hot surface. Producing tortillas individually is, therefore, extremely time and labor intensive which makes the use of employees impractical for operations serving high volumes of customers. Thus, most restaurants, stores, and the like do not serve fresh homemade tortillas.
Accordingly, an apparatus which automatically presses dough balls and then cooks the resulting flat thin disks into tortillas would benefit a variety of food service operations. U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,813, issued on Sep. 6, 1988 to Schultz, discloses an apparatus that includes a housing containing a rotisserie having three baking plates and a cooling plate. The housing further includes a burner positioned beneath each of the three baking plates to heat those plates, resulting in the baking of flat thin disks of dough residing on a particular plate. A conveyor connects to the housing to sequentially deliver dough balls onto the top baking plate so that a press plate presses each of the sequentially delivered dough balls into a flat thin disk to form a tortilla.
In operation, an employee separates a batch of dough into discrete dough balls and then places them in a line on the conveyor. The conveyor sequentially delivers the dough balls onto the top baking plate where the press plate systematically raises and lowers to sequentially press the dough balls into flat thin disks. A motor driven gear system drives a shaft connected to each of the four plates to rotate them. Thus, after the pressing of each dough ball, the top baking plate rotates so that the conveyor delivers the next dough ball beneath the press plate.
As the top baking plate fully rotates, a deflector positioned over the plate flips each flat thin disk to deposit the disks sequentially onto a slide that delivers them to the next baking plate. The next baking plate also rotates the flat thin disks over a burner to cook the second side of each flat thin disk. When that baking plate fully rotates, the flat thin disks contact a similar deflector that flips them onto a slide that delivers them onto the next baking plate. That final baking plate finishes the cooking of the first side of each flat thin disk and then delivers the flat thin disks to the cooling plate using a similar deflector and slide. The cooling plate rotates to permit each of the flat thin disks to cool before utilizing a deflector and slide to place the baked flat thin disks onto a second conveyor that permits restaurant personnel to retrieve the cooked flat thin disks for either storage or immediate delivery to restaurant customers.
Unfortunately, although the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,813 eliminates much of the time and labor intensive steps normally required in forming and baking flat thin disks of dough, that apparatus still requires the constant supervision of at least one employee. That employee must constantly form the dough balls and place them sequentially onto the conveyor. Thus, any food service operation utilizing the apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,813 must hire an additional person whose sole responsibility is to monitor the apparatus and place dough balls onto the conveyor.
Accordingly, and apparatus that forms flat thin disks of dough from a batch of dough and feeds the flat thin disks to a cooking device would be highly desirable.